


Panther Squadron

by Wisky0913



Category: Star Wars Original Trilogy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-23
Updated: 2021-03-02
Packaged: 2021-03-15 08:42:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 15,834
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28935711
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wisky0913/pseuds/Wisky0913
Summary: First part of my Panther Squadron series, set concurrently with The Empire Strikes back.
Kudos: 7





	1. Chapter 1

The dully lit hangar deck of the MC80 Liberty Class cruiser Orionda was almost peaceful as Lt. Jarrie Caldoran observed the flight prep of the x-wings of Strato Squadron from one of the railings overlooking the hangar, his flight helmet tucked under his right arm. The low hum of the engines heating up and the beeps and chirps of the astromechs almost turned the hangar into a cantina scene with all the noise mixing together. Jarrie always enjoyed watching the crews and other pilots preparing for liftoff, it was a luxury he didn’t get to enjoy often as he was usually one of those pilots preparing or launch, with his helmet strapped onto his head, comm chatter in his ear and lights flashing across his fighter’s dashboard as he went through preflight checks. As he turned his head from ship to ship taking in the peaceful chaos of the hangar, a voice came over the ships comm and brought everything to a standstill.

‘Strato Squadron stand down. All hands prepare for hyperspace jump!’ Captian Orills, the ships commanding officer stated with raspy Mon Calamari voice before the comm clicked off.

‘What in the kriff is going on!?’ yelled one of the pilots from the open cockpit of their x-wing. As the whole hangar erupted into chatter. 

There goes Wally spouting his mouth again… Jarrie thought. Captain Tremo Waldrine, better known as Wally by his fellow pilots, was the leader of Strato Squadron. While he had a rather rough personality, often speaking his mind without thinking, he led with a no nonsense attitude and was well respected by his fellow pilots both in his squadron and outside of it. Though in this case, Jarrie was wondering the same thing. He had just been in a pilot briefing for both Strato squadron and his own Panther Squadron led by Captain Orills and the Quarren fleet tactician Gleeves. The orders had been for Strato squadron to ready their fighters and prepare to reinforce Merrick Group in their assault on the Relgor Five shipyards. Panther Squadron was to be in the hangar on standby in case the assault required more support in achieving their goal. 

Jarrie turned towards the stairs leading down to the hangar deck his legs quickening from a walk to a run, his feet thumping against the metal walkway causing it to shake as he moved. He knew that he had to report to his squadron and that most likely they would all be by their fighters or somewhere on the hangar deck, well his squadron leader at least. Commander Verch was always on time and always ready for whatever came her way. She was a battle hardened veteran that put the care of her pilots above all else and was well respected for that trait. 

The noise in the hangar had turned into a loud chaotic thundering of crew, pilots, and droids scrambling about the hangar their voices barely audible as he ran. The dull white lights of the hangar had shifted to a bright red flashing as the ship moved to full alert. Jarrie nearly ran into an astromech as he continued towards his fighter. The green droid with teal compartment lining spun its head back as it rolled to look right at Jarrie, letting out a loud distressed angry chirp before turning its head back and continuing on its way. Kye is never going to let me hear the last of that one… he thought as he continued his sprint to his fighter. 

As he approached his fighter he saw Commander Verch leaning against her A-wing in her orange flight suit, her brunette hair with yellow highlights tied back in a bun, flight helmet with a red midrib resting on the main hull of the A-wing. Her usual calm and composed look on her face even in the chaotic hangar. The commander was rarely unsettled and that calmed Jarrie down a bit. Jarrie looked over at her with a puzzled yet relieved look, knowing that she knew what was happening and soon his confusion would be abated.  
“Well you look spooked,” a voice said snarkly from towards the center of the hangar as Jarrie tuned his head towards where the voice came from to see a pilot in a dark blue flight suit with a dark complexion, full beard and an interceptor helmet with a half circle logo of Ruto Squadron on the top gripped from the cheek plate in his left hand.  
“Well when new orders and come down that quickly and the alert goes up and we’re not in combat you tend to be a little spooked.” Jarrie replied.

Tey Enso was one of the newest members of the squadron, a very sarcastic and wise cracking pilot that enjoyed messing with other squadron members in his down time. He had transferred from Ruto squadron after a routine convoy escort mission in the Gabre system went awry and seven of the squadrons twelve pilots were lost, with three of the remaining five being too injured to fly including the squadron leader. After the squadron’s dissolution following the mission, the two healthy pilots transferred to the Orionda, Tey to Panther Squadron and Mett to Strato Squadron. 

“Let’s hope that whatever you boys are feeling settles down, we are going to need the two of you for our next assignment.” 

This voice came from Verch, presented with a tone that immediately calmed Jarrie and stopped Tey from making another comment. Both Jarrie and Tey moved closer to Verch’s A-wing, helmets tucked under their arms. The closer Jarrie got to the Commander he began to notice that other pilots were already waiting for the Commander’s briefing. The Rodian Stey Clem was standing at attention right in front of where the Commander stood, Carso was crouched down talking with his astromech, an odd quirk to be sure but to each his own, and Vella was giving her helmet a scrub with the red bandana with an old republic logo that she kept tied around her left arm as a good luck charm.  
“Here’s what’s going on team,” Verch began. “We are being rerouted to the Agamar system.”

“The Agamar system?!?” Cardo chimed in with a rather offset tone, “The Alliance doesn’t have any bases or battle groups there.”

Jarrie noticed Verch open her mouth to continue but then quickly closed it. Something was wrong here and he could feel the tension around the hangar, especially from his squadron mates. Jarrie turned his head to see all eyes staring at a seemingly paralyzed Verch, unsure of what the remaining part of the orders would be. Jarrie could see a puzzled and irritated look on Cardo’s face who stood directly across from him. The squadron executive officer was usually a bit uptight, but this was a whole different level that Cardo rarely showed. Whatever was going on was bigger than any mission squadron had gone on before and the fact that Verch seemed unsettled just providing the orders didn’t help the matter. When she got this way it usually meant that either they or the Rebellion itself was in trouble. 

After a few seconds of silence, Verch finally opened her mouth to continue giving the orders. 

“Correct, there are no Rebel forces on or near Agamar. However, it was one of the safe systems marked by the Phoenix Cell in the early days of the Rebellion in case there was ever the need for an evacuation rendezvous point,” Verch paused for a moment before continuing, “we will be going to assist the third division after their escape from Hoth.”

Upon hearing this, Jarrie’s heart sank and he could see the other members of his squadron feeling the same way. No one aside from the commanding officers knew the location of the Rebellion’s new base, but now everyone had a good guess that Hoth had been its location. 

“Does that mean…” Vella said softly, but loud enough for everyone including the commander to hear as Jarrie noticed the color disappear from her face, changing from a natural tan to almost a pale white like the snow from his home world in the winter season.

“Yes, it does. The Empire found our base on Hoth, at this point we do not know just how many of our personnel and commanding officers evacuated safely but we do know that the base is lost. Our orders are to assist the third division survivors in any way possible while we await orders from high command. We will be flying escort and support while any wounded are transferred to the Orionda. Is that understood?”

“Yes ma’am.” Everyone responded in unison.

“Very good, now to your fighters.”

As Jarrie neared his fighter he slid his flight helmet on filling his ears with comm chatter from pilots and crew alike. Over the chatter he heard the engines of the ship get louder as they began to accelerate nearing the final preparations for entry into hyperspace. The trip wouldn’t take long but it was the fear of the unknown and the status of the evacuees that truly worried him. Just how much time did they have… he kept thinking repeatedly. 

The carbon scoring of his A-wing’s engines made the yellow coloring appear almost as black as the tail fins and wings. As he climbed the ladder and moved across the hull of his ship towards the cockpit he noticed his astromech giving it a once over before take-off. Giving it a nod and hearing a cheerful chirp in return, Jarrie slid into the cramped cockpit of his fighter and began his preflight check. First checking fuel and engines and then checking weapons, shields and countermeasures. Somehow he had gotten one of the more temperamental A-wings in the squadron, but he could always rely on it when it counted.

As Jarrie sat in his cockpit he flipped his canopy switch and heard his canopy lock in place he could only imagine what had occurred on Hoth, if it had been the new Rebel base he knew that most of the leadership would have been there but he couldn’t let those thoughts overtake him. As he flipped the switch to ignite his engines, the ship lurched into hyperspace with the bright blue swirling vortex taking the place of the stationary stars outside the hangar bay.


	2. The Rescue begins

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Panther Squadron moves to assist the Survivors of Hoth

‘All fighters, prepare for launch,’ Captain Orills ordered over the comm a touch of urgency in his voice as the Orionda dropped out of hyperspace, replacing the blue vortex with more stationary stars and a moon.

‘Verch to Panther Squadron.’

‘Copy Panther Leader’ each pilot responded in succession.

‘We’ll be taking off first, A-wings will head straight for the evacuee fleet, since our ships are faster it should allow us to relay information back to the Orionda faster. When we make contact with the ships we need to assess the situation while the Orionda moves into position for the crew exchange. X-wings will hang back and join us when possible, keeping an eye out for any possible pirates or Imperials that might try to disrupt our operation. After the Orionda has moved into position form up into your usual trios and patrol the area.’

Jarrie made his acknowledgement and then switched to a private channel. 

‘Looks like I’ll be leaving you behind again Tey,’ Jarrie remarked.

‘Yeah, Yeah. Just makes sure you handle your part of the mission, we don’t need another incident like what happened the first time we flew together.’

“That ‘incident’ as you call it, wasn’t even my fault. You knew my ship was still in need of repairs when we were scrambled.”

“But whose fault was it that it needed to be repaired?” Tey remarked smugly.

“Sure blame the guy that saved your rear as you were trying to land on the Orionda.” Jarrie responded. 

Tey huffed at that response and Jarrie could hear him double checking his instruments as Jarrie switched back the main squadron comm. He heard Ralish praying over the comm, something he did before every mission but this time Jarrie was unsure if it was for the mission, the evacuees of Hoth or those that had died at Hoth.  
‘Verch to Panther squadron we have clearance for take-off.’

As Jarrie acknowledged his commanding officer he watched as she lifted off in her A-wing, her engines letting out a burst of exhaust as she left the hangar with two other A-wings and an x-wing following suit. Jarrie was next. Giving his controls and gauges a final check, he looked up to see the flight officer giving him the green light for takeoff. Adjusting his thrusters he felt his ship leave the hangar deck as he moved his control stick forward moving his ship from the hangar to the space of the Agamar system where stars lit up the vast blackness around him.

‘Panther Squadron form up in your fighter groups and call in,’ Verch said after all fighters had left the hangar.

‘Panther Two standing by with x-wing group,’ Cardo said in his usual stern commanding tone with the sound of dials flipping and clicking in the background. Something Cardo always did trying to find the perfect systems balance with his systems which could never be achieved in his patched up x-wing that even Kye couldn’t fix.

‘Panther three standing by,’ Jarrie responded as he adjusted his fighters power distribution diverting weapons power to his engines.

As the rest of the squadron checked in, Jarrie noticed a warning light flashing in his engine display. R3-J9 was always thorough with his flight checks ever since that mission to the Soldeer where they had been shot down after a power failure knocked out their primary engines in the middle of a dogfight. He gave the sensor three taps and saw the warning light disappear from his display. Must have been some sort of glitch, he thought to himself before being snapped out of thought by his commanding officer.  
‘Panther leader to all A-wings accelerate to full throttle and head to point nine five, the orionda just picked up their position.’

As Jarrie moved into formation he transferred all remaining weapons power to his engines matching the speed of his commanding officer holding position just off her wing. As he glanced down at his ships scanner the eleven white dots representing the rest of panther squadron, six other A-wings flying in pairs like himself and five dots trailing behind him of the x-wing group. As Jarrie’s group continued to move forward three larger blue dots appeared on his scanner along with three other white dots that were circling the blue dots. 

‘Commander, I have the third division ships on my scanner,’ Jarrie said over the comm.

‘I see them, we should be in comm range all fighters hold formation. Third division transport, this is Commander Verch of Panther Squadron stationed aboard the Orionda, do you copy?’ Verch asked over the comm but there was no response, only static. 

As Verch began to ask again and the evacuee ships came into full view, a response came through.

‘Good to see you Commander, this is Wampa leader. The transports communications were knocked out in the escape from Hoth we’re using our astromechs to communicate with the astromechs on board the transport.’

‘Copy that Wampa leader. We’ll relay that information to the Orionda.’

As Verch and Wampa leader continued their conversation Jarrie broke off from the commander’s wing and began circling the evacuee ships shifting into a loose formation of three with Panther seven and eleven on his wings as he took point. The third division fleet consisted of one GR-75 transport, a light gray Hammerhead Corvette with blue trim around the engines and cockpit and a green painted Corellian CR90 corvette with white trim escorted by three x-wing fighters. The GR-75 transport was trailing smoke from its engines and from a singed and still burning spot just behind the command bridge that looked as if it had been hit by a trubolaser blast. The CR90 was damaged in the aft section dangerously close to the ship’s reactor and appeared to have a YT-2000 model freighter docked at its right airlock. Jarrie had never seen that model freighter before, but as long as it was a better ship than that junker of a YT-1300 that Han Solo flew the one time it had dropped supplies for the Orionda, that was good enough for him.

As Jarrie circled around to the other side of the CR90, well what was left of the other side, he noticed that it had three separate points that looked almost identical (if not larger than the one on the GR-75). All three points were trailing smoke in a cloud so thick that it blocked out the stars in the system. Pulling up on his stick, Jarrie moved his fighter out of the way of the smoke to avoid losing visibility. As he leveled out his fighter, a female voice he had never heard before came over his comm.

‘The Bail has seen better days. I’m just glad the hyperdrive wasn’t damaged or else we never would have escaped Hoth in one piece.’

‘Important thing is that you’re here now,’ Jarrie said in response, ‘The fact that you’re here now is reason enough to be relieved even if you’re ships have seen better days. Who am I speaking to?’

‘Sorry should have introduced myself. This is Wampa nine, but you can call me Riyan.’

As Riyan finished her introduction, Jarrie looked to his right to see an x-wing moving up alongside of him. There was smoke trailing off the top right s-foil and Jarrie could see dark black marks where lasers had hit on both the starboard engine and the front of the fighter from just after the cockpit down to the nose cone, changing parts of the white stripe to a black or almost dark gray shade. The midsection just behind the astromech was sparking. As he made these notes Jarrie proceeded to introduce himself.

‘Nice to meet you. I’m Panther three, but you can call me Jarrie. From the looks of it you’ve been through a lot too, I’ve never seen a fighter beat up that badly before and still be able to function. Where’s the rest of your squadron?’

The moment he asked about her squadron was the moment Jarrie knew he had messed up. The comm line went silent and Jarrie could hear Riyan swallow her breath as he waited for a response.

‘Hoth wasn’t pretty and neither was the escape,’ Riyan began. ‘I think we were the only ones from the third division that made it.’

That wasn’t quite the response Jarrie was looking for but that was expected. Whatever happened on Hoth was probably a lot more than Jarrie could even imagine and he knew that in time he would hear what truly happened and why the third division had been reduced to three ships with a three fighter escort, whether it was from the survivors or his commanding officer. If this was all that remained of the Third Division, then Jarrie understood why she didn’t give a straight answer. Sometimes, it’s being the one that survives that hurts the most and Jarrie knew that on a personal level. 

‘Panther Leader to Panther Squadron,’ Verch called over the comm. ‘All information has been relayed to the Orionda, hold positon and continue following your flight paths while the Orionda moves into position.’

‘Copy Panther Leader,’ Jarrie acknowledged over the comm. 

Continuing his circle of the fleet all he could think about was what had happened and why. He knew the empire had found the base, but he didn’t know why there were so few surviviors. He had heard stories about the evacuation of Yavin and the escape from Massassi base shortly after the destruction of the Death star, casualties there had been minimal as the Empire only sent a small force to attack the rebels. As the Empire had viewed the Alliance casualties suffered at Scarif and those fighting the Death Star as being greater than they actually were and the fact that the Empire had a minimal presence in the Yavin sector leading to an easy escape by the Alliance. It sounded like Hoth was a different story but that story would have to wait. 

As Jarrie completed his pass by the Hammerhead corvette, he saw the Orionda as it moved closer to the Third Division to assist the survivors. Strato Squadron had formed a defensive perimeter around the MC80, with three groups of four fighters each surrounding the cruiser one over the main hull and one on either side. 

‘All fighters clear out,’ Verch ordered. ‘The Orionda is in range to begin the transfer operation. While the transfer occurs both ships will be vulnerable to attack since the Orionda has to drop its shields. Form up into your groups and stay alert. While this system is safe it’s a little too quiet for my liking, so watch for enemy ships.’

Jarrie acknowledged and accelerated his thrusters moving to a safe distance away from the fleet. Breaking off from Riyan’s x-wing as well as panther seven and eleven who had moved to join their formations, while Riyan rejoined her squadron leader. Jarrie pulled right on his stick and moved towards where Tey was positioned with panther nine following just off his wing.

‘The damage didn’t look to bad from back there,’ Tey said over the comm as Jarrie moved his ship to the port side of Tey’s x-wing. 

‘It’s probably worse than it looks,’ Jarrie responded.

‘Hard to believe they were actually able to make it,’ Vella remarked over the comm, sliding her ship into formation on Tey’s starboard side. 

As the three began their sweep, the pit reformed in Jarrie’s stomach. The fear of the unknown about what had happened, the status of the survivors aboard all three ships and the state of the rebellion as a whole. He couldn’t stop thinking about it, but now wasn’t the time to worry. He heard the GR75 dock with the Orionda and remembered that both ships needed his protection, so he snapped back to reality and went back to his flight pattern.


	3. The discovery by the 182nd

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The 182nd Imperial fighter wing make an interesting discovery while on Patrol

The Star Destroyer Restrictor dropped out of hyperspace along with the other ships of the Ninth Judicial fleet and immediately deployed two TIE fighter squadrons for patrol of the Entralla system. The lead group led by Vallie Caldoran banked to the left while group two went to the right.

‘Hydra group stay alert, all the debris in this system has made this place a death trap.’ Vallie said to his squadron.

‘Copy that captain,’ Reaper responded.

‘Roger Vice,’ Breach said over the comm breaching protocol as usual. Luckily they were good enough at their jobs where Captain Karines, as strict and sometimes brutal as he was, didn’t mind. 

‘With all the debris in this system, it’s going to be hard to detect any rebel craft,’ Hazard remarked over the comm.

‘You just stay in formation this time and don’t fly anywhere near my fighter this time, as cheap as TIEs are if you come into my line of fire again I might do more than shoot a hole in your panel and as much as I’d like to, you can’t be replaced!’ Blitz barked over the comm.

‘Cut the chatter and stay in formation Hydra, while this is just patrol we need to stay focused!’

Vallie was getting sick of always being the first group out on patrol and he hoped that his tone didn’t give it away each time he spoke. While the duty never bothered him, it was why he was being sent out first that truly bothered him. After the 182nd’s failure in the Gabre system to wipe out the entire rebel convoy, allowing five of the rebel fighters to escape with two of them undamaged, and loosing twelve of their wing’s pilots including almost all of Anooba squadron and three out of the five from Reek squadron's veteran first group. That had been about six months ago and while they had gotten some rookie replacements from Carida they didn’t make up for the talent they had lost. Especially Hazard, who Vallie thought had been assigned to him as another form of punishment for his failure. 

The debris in the Entralla system was more than even a droid could count, being made up of more ships than a single person could imagine. There had been many ambushes and disputes fought in this system because of the system’s proximity to Muunilinst, the most notable one being fought during the clone wars where a separatist fleet ambushed a republic attack force on its way to Muunilinst during the second year of the war destroying most ships present at the battle. Since then, it has been a hub for pirate attacks and was suspected to have rebel activity in the area by scouts.

Vallie was constantly checking his scanner, hoping that anything would change the boring system patrol he was on, it had only been an hour, but it felt much longer than that. He would have much rather been back on the Restrictor in his room going over loyalty reports. Other than combat that was the only other part of his Imperial service that he enjoyed, rooting out traitors or would be traitors based on their profiles and behavior history. 

A year after he had been given the position as an Imperial loyalty officer, which was the same year the Death Star was destroyed, he had heard of the defection of Captain Lindon Javes of Helix Squadron during a mission to Fostar Haven where he had disabled his ally’s fighters, aided in the escape of Aderaanian refugees and stolen a TIE advanced Starfighter. It was only until after the event a day later that Vallie had received Javes’ profile for review. That was moment he knew he would never let happen again, he always made sure to get through two days’ worth of reports each day in order to root out any defectors and since then he had lost count of the number of would be defectors he had correctly identified and either got imprisoned, conscripted or executed. Though the ones that were rescued or had help were ones that he could do nothing about.

‘Hydra leader, I’m picking something up on my scanner, it’s faint but it could be something,’ Hazard said over the comm, ‘it’s over in grid point eight.’

‘Copy that Hazard, we’ll move in and check it out. Vice to hydra, all fighters hold formation and follow me,’ Vallie said over the comm.

It had been three hours at this point and Vallie couldn’t help but wonder why there was just something popping up now, but in accordance with Captain Kairnes’ protocol, all sensor hits must be checked and even though hazard was and immensely reckless pilot, among other things, he was always accurate with sensor readings. 

Holding a ‘T’ formation of five with Vallie in the middle, Vallie pulled to the left on his controls and moved the ship to the left. As he did, he nearly collided with Hazard who was on his left wing as a result of Hazard’s poor reaction time, which somehow hadn’t gotten him killed yet. As they continued towards the sensor hit, Blitz had to temporarily break from formation to avoid a collision with a half destroyed Separatist Sheathipede-class shuttle before falling back in on Vallie’s right wing.

‘Nearly got taken out by a relic there!’ Blitz called over the comm.

‘Glad you avoided it should have just destroyed it though. If that had taken you out, our own relic wouldn’t let your ghost hear the end of it!’ Reaper laughed over the comm.

‘Blitz, Reaper cut the chatter, we’re almost to the sensor hit.’ Vallie ordered.

As they neared the sensor hit, Vallie realized that it was an astromech floating in space.

‘That’s the sensor hit?! What a load of kriff that is!’ Breach remarked. Once again breaking protocol by using profane language over the comm while on assignment. 

‘Hold on,’ Vallie said. Flipping the switch to turn on his TIE’s light to get a better look at the droid. Upon first glance the droid seemed useless, like a piece of discarded garbage that someone had jettisoned. The droid was covered in carbon scoring, looking like it had sent too long on the planet Mustafar or Sullust where lava flowed like a river. The colors were barely recognizable, but Vallie could make out breaks in the scoring where a metallic blue appeared with gold panel trim on both the head and main body of the droid. It appeared to be a R3 series model with a transparent dome, but instead of the standard clear dome this droids dome was tinted red. The droid was motionless as if it had been drained of power and was just floating in a semi stationary position in the debris field. 

‘Reaper, move in and try to spin that droid around with your engines. Keep the power low so we don’t blow it away into another piece of debris.’ Vallie ordered.

‘Copy that captain, I’m moving in.’

As Reaper moved into position, the white dot on Vallie’s left began to move. Before he had time to say anything, Blitz was barking over the comm.

‘Hazard! What do you think you’re doing?! Vice ordered reaper to break formation to check it out, not you. Park that TIE, before you end up destroying that droid!’

Hazard immediately stopped his fighter, bringing it to a complete stop along with the other TIEs. Vallie let out a long sigh, which he hoped the others didn’t hear or if they did that they wouldn’t comment on. While Blitz was one of the more veteran members of the 182nd and was the second lieutenant of the fighter wing, only being outranked by first lieutenant Ongar ‘Fang’ Chapar and Vallie himself, he always had a tendency to overstep his command. Often jumping in to situations that did not concern him, which had earned him the nickname Blitz along with his rapid attack pattern when facing the enemy. 

It didn’t take long for Reaper to move into position, stopping his fighter in front of the droid so that his engines faced the rest of the Squadron. He had earned his nickname for being able to carefully maneuver his TIE in such a delicate yet smooth manner that he had the highest kill count of any member of the 182nd, though being able to determine the weak point of an enemy fighter in two seconds also helped. Vallie remembered back to their first mission together when Reaper had single handedly wiped out an entire squadron of Rebel y-wings, dancing his fighter through space and destroying each enemy bomber with a well-placed two shots each. 

‘In position,’ Reaper called.

‘Roger that, fire up the engines. Let’s see if we can get a better look at our little friend here.’ 

‘Copy that Captain, starting up engines on low power now.’

As the dull whine of the TIE engines began to fill the space around them, the droid began to spin slowly. The other side of the droid wasn’t much of a surprise covered in an even thicker layer of scoring or ash, and Vallie began to wonder just how long it had been out here. 

As it made two full rotations around Vallie directed Reaper to move his fighter just under the droid to flip around so they could get a better look at the bottom of the droid. As it began to spin, Vallie noticed something and so did everyone else.

‘Vice!! Did you see that mark?!’ Breach said over the comm. 

‘I did. While this mark is partially covered in ash, there is enough of it visible to see that it’s a starbird. Precisely, the same starbird created by mandalorian rebel Sabine Wren in the years leading up to the beginning of this civil war. Reaper, attach your cable to the droid and we’ll bring it back to the restrictor.’

Reaper acknowledged his commanding officer and secured the droid with his tow cable, and the squadron began to make their way back to the Restrictor. As they began, Vallie sent a return to ship ping to group two who acknowledged almost instantly. There seemed to be more debris on the way back than there was as they made their patrol trip away from the Restrictor. 

Vallie ordered three formation breaks as they went. One to avoid forward section of a destroyed Republic Arquitens-class light cruiser that nearly took everyone out and almost took Reaper out a second time as a result of Hazard’s flying. The second break came after the debris of a destroyed Nebulon-B frigate nearly barreled into Breach from above. The final break came after a shredded debris storm chewed up all five of their fighters, Vallie couldn’t figure out how they were still flying after that but they made it in one piece and cursed multiple times under his breath as they went through the storm. He couldn’t wait to be back on the destroyer.

As they neared the destroyer the second group appeared on the scanner. Vallie cursed under his breath again as he noticed that only three of the group’s five ships were in formation. It seemed that every time they entered new system and Hydra was sent on patrol there always seemed to be rookies that went down. He knew there would be more rookies to fill the losses but academy pilots these days were hot headed and rash. None of the pilots that came from the academies actually cared for flying or rooting out the rebels terrorizing the galaxy. He would admit that most rookies were loyal he had only rooted out a few traitors, but all these rookies wanted was glory and to kill as many rebels or pirates as possible instead of focusing on the task at hand. It was the one thing he was grateful for with Hazard, while he was a younger pilot and flew like a crazed loth cat, he always stayed focused on the mission at hand and never glory hunted like Regal in Zillo Squadron.

As Vallie prepared to enter the hangar he checked in with command.

‘This is hydra leader to command, we came across a suspected rebel droid on patrol and brought it back for analysis. It is attached to the hull of Hydra six.’  
‘Copy Hydra Leader, you are cleared to land. A recovery team will move to assist. Join them once you exit your fighter.’

Vallie sent his acknowledgment and maneuvered his ship into the hangar. He could only imagine the secrets that droid held, and began to wonder the significance it might have to tracking the rebels not just in this sector of the Outer rim but in general. He landed his TIE interceptor on the hangar deck and switched off all controls before lifting his hatch and climbing out to inspect the damage from the debris storm. 

Overall he noticed that the damage to his hull wasn’t too severe, but both this wings had taken immense damage. He looked away from his fighter and into the Restrictors hangar, he watched as Reaper and Blitz touched down with Hazard easing it in after them, Breach was already out of his ship starting his sprint to the mess as usual. As Vallie began to make his way toward Reapers ship to join the recovery team, he heard an old, rough, familiar voice.

‘Son, What have you done to my ship?!’

‘Nothing Wrench, our group ran into a debris storm on the way back. We all got a bit chewed up, and it’s not your ship. It’s the empire’s ship.’ Vallie responded.

‘Yes boy, but who helped put the empire in place?’

‘I know Wrench, I know.’ Vallie said with a wave of his hand as he walked away from the Chief mechanic. To this day, Vallie still wondered why Wrench had chosen to stay with the Empire as a ship mechanic. The Emperor had decommissioned the clones years ago, yet Wrench still felt the need to serve, though Vallie would never complain. The old clone did some remarkable work on their TIE fighters.

Vallie approached Reaper’s ship with a bit of caution. While this droid had been a good find, they didn’t know what it might hold or how significant it actually was. A stormtrooper gave him a salute as he walked by as he moved to speak to Reaper.

‘I’m amazed that storm didn’t knock the droid off,’ Reaper began.

‘As am I. Hardly a scratch on the droid either.’ Vallie responded as he looked over at the droid being placed on to a hoversled to be led away to the analysis room. Vallie took a wuick glance over the droid now that he was close to it and couldn’t help but smirk when he realized the memory core was still intact. His smirk only got bigger when he thought of what secrets were hidden inside that R3 unit and he was glad that he would be the one doing the primary analysis of the droid.


	4. Imperial Duty

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vallie conducts his ISB duties after returning from patrol

As Vallie walked with the techs and security team that had secured the suspected rebel droid, his black helmet with red triangles with points facing away from each other on the raised middle portion with three red lines on the lower portion stretching from the fron of the helmet to the back gripped under his right arm, he looked around the hangar. As he turned his head to the left he noticed Blanc lieutenant and leader of Hydra group two. Vallie knew he would have to talk to him about the two pilots he lost at some point so he could send the condolence letters in accordance to Imperial protocol, assuming both pilots had next of kin that would actually receive the letters, but that wasn’t Vallie’s concern. Vallie informed one of the troopers that he would be breaking off to check in with Blanc, whose formal name was Tredan Bols.

As Vallie made his way over, he heard Wrench cursing out an astromech. The old man never did like droids of any kind, but somehow he managed to tolerate them enough to get the work done. He just hoped that it wasn’t his own TIE they were working on, he had been through too many missions in that interceptor for it to get kriffed up during a repair job. As he focused his attention back on Blanc, he prepared himself for the news.

‘Good to see you captain,’ Blanc began. ‘Guessing you’re here about the two fighters we were missing.’

‘That’s correct lieutenant. Though as always, it is not your fault for the loss of rookie pilots. Some of them don’t know up from down when they are out there, much less how to maneuver around debris or other ships effectively. So who were the two unlucky pilots this time?’

‘We lost Lobbins and Olbin. The kids didn’t even react, they just smacked right into the debris even after I warned them. Lobbins hit a disabled Vulture droid after we broke to avoid the hull of a Munificent-class frigate and Olbin went shortly after smacking into the hull of a destroyed corvette class ship.’

‘Thank you Lieutenant, submit your patrol information to flight officer Krill and then grab a meal at the mess. Breach is already there and you can bet he’s already prepared his story of how our patrol went.’

‘Which will be over exaggerated as always,’ Blanc responded a sharp smile appearing on her face, as Vallie turned to rejoin the group surrounding the droid.  
Lobbins and Olbin had come in at the same time, both transferring straight from Carida to join the 182nd and Vallie had personally selected both to join Hydra from the batch of recruits that had arrived that day. Lobbins was a backwater kid who believed in the order the Empire brought and could handle his own in a fight both in the sky and on the ground. While Olbin was a run of the mill Imperial seeking glory like the rest. The only reason Vallie selected him was because he was the best pilot in the group, although clearly he was not good enough to avoid a simple piece of corvette debris.

Joining up with the security team, they walked silently to Vallie’s quarters. Shortly after the tech’s secured the droid, and Vallie had finished his discussion with Reaper, one of the techs approached him in regards to where the droid be analyzed. Vallie had been told that Captain Kairnes had ordered for the captured droid to be sent to deck thirteen where all droids received maintenance and where the slicers operated for captured droids but Vallie wanted to redeem himself, especially after the loss of another two rookie pilots on a patrol mission. So he contacted the Kainres himself and requested to have the droid sent to his own quarters instead of deck thirteen and Kairnes obliged.

The entire hallway had been cleared of personnel to allow the escort team through. Even all droid traffic had been rerouted. The bright lights of the hallway were almost soothing as they walked, much better than the mess of debris that floated outside of the ship. As they entered the lift Vallie positioned himself at the back of the group, with the droid’s hoversled parked in front of him. He glanced down at the droid that was positioned flat on its back with its sensors facing up. He thought he caught the glimpse of a sensor light turning on and off on the droid, but passed it off as just a low power flash or a glitch with the droid’s system as result of the scoring/ash or from being in space for too long and having a system freeze. 

As the lift rose to deck sixty six, Vallie kept glancing down at the droid wondering if he would catch another glimpse of a sensor light as he tried to gain more information about the droid before cracking into its memory core, but it remained motion less and no lights flashed on it. The lift stopped abruptly as it reached deck sixty six. All the advanced technology of the empire and we still can’t get a lift without stopping flaws, Vallie thought to himself as the door slid open and they exited. Vallie still continued to follow behind the group as they made a right and two lefts to get to his quarters and his office. 

Vallie instructed the techs to place the droid in his office and fit it with a restraining bolt as a precaution as he turned to his room to change out of his flight uniform. Moving into his dully lit quarters, he set his flight helmet on his bed side table and walked over to his closet area to grab the rack for his flight suit and began to change into more professional ISB attire. Taking off the red vambraces first and setting them on his bed and then his removing his red flight boots, setting them on the floor of his quarters underneath the table with his helmet. As he removed the remainder of his solid red flight suit and hung it on the hangar, he began to think about all the possibilities that lay ahead of him.  
He had felt humiliated at the failure in the Gabre system, where they had failed to uphold the ruthless nature of the 182nd and let the rebels escape. It was the first and only time he had frozen during combat and the first time he had lost someone that actually meant something to him. 

Raiya Feros had been one of the first pilots he had recruited into the 182nd after taking command of the squadron following the disastrous skirmish above Malastare days before his promotion to head loyalty officer, which now that he looked back, was probably the reason why he was promoted in the first place. After Vallie was promoted Kairnes tasked him with finding recruits to fill out the vacancies left in the squadron, whether they were veterans who would be reassigned to the 182nd or rookies fresh out of the academy as well as finding another loyalty officer to fill out the other empty seat left after the battle. As he began his search, he found Raiya and she filled all the rolls Kairnes had tasked him to fill. She was a baron with the 76th Assault wing stationed on the Star Destroyer Crimson’s Bane patrolling the Dathomir system who had risen through the ranks hunting mercenaries and other criminal organizations that the empire feared would get out of hand and interfere with overall order.

Vallie sent the transfer request and was happily surprised seeing an acceptance of the request as he continued to identify other potential recruits such as Specialist Reaves, Reaper, of the 32nd Hunter wing and lieutenant Ryson, Blitz, of the Coruscant defense force. The minute Raiya boarded the Restrictor Vallie’s jaw dropped, in his mind of course as he wasn’t going to break protocol in front of the new recruits. She was slim figured with dark brown eyes and short cut light brown hair. As they began working together they noticed they had a real connection that made working together almost effortless and when they flew joint operations they were an inseparable pair, each making up for the others weak points and flaws. They had become something of a pair and Vallie enjoyed every minute of it, but then it happened.

As they were in combat with the rebel squadron in the Gabre system, providing cover for Reek squadron as they made their bombing runs on the transports, Raiya’s fighter took a hit to her interceptor’s port side panel sending debris into space and severely hampering her speed. Vallie swung around and fired three volleys of shots destroying the x-wing instantly. As the battle progressed the losses continued to amount on both sides with only four of the rebel fighters remaining, with three of them burning from various areas of their x-wings. 

Vallie moved into position with Raiya to finish off the remaining rebels when a red dot appeared on his scanner, before he had time to react the rebel opened fire from above and reduced Raiya’s fighter to dust in an instant knocking Vallie’s fighter off course as the x-wing came down and flew past his viewport. As Vallie watched the fighter go by he noticed the kill count on the side of the fighter, a total of twenty-three kills in four rows of five and a row of three, represented by TIE fighters and Bombers painted in black with a white line through each of them, the same colors as the 182nd’s fighters. As Vallie watched the x-wing rejoin with the other rebels he heard other squadron members asking for orders over the comm, but he just sat there in shock as he watched the remaining rebel x-wings jump to hyperspace leaving them there. He vowed that he would never forget that fighter and made a promise that if he ever saw it again, he would end that rebel.

As Vallie shifted into his Imperial Security Bureau uniform, fastening each button in sequence before attaching his rank plaque, he began to think of where to start with the droid. Should he recharge its power? Give it an oil bath to get the ash and scoring off? Or just pry right into its memory core and begin divulging secrets?

As he pulled his boots on and grabbed his data tab, he moved towards his door and it slid open rapidly. Vallie walked straight across the hall to his office and as the door to his quarters closed the door to his office opened almost in unison just the way he liked it. Entering the office he glanced around the room he looked at his medals, fifteen of them in total that he had earned over his days serving the Empire. His favorite being the one from High command that came with his helmet. As he continued walking he glanced over at his model TIE interceptor placed on the left of a shelf with a model TIE defender facing it on the right side. Vallie wished that the TIE defender project had continued, he had read every single report and update that came from the Lothal factories as they were released. After the defeat of the empire on Lothal and the disappearance of Grand Admiral Thrawn, the project had gone completely silent. There were rumors of other TIE prototypes being created by other Imperial science divisions, but all information on them was classified and even Vallie with high level ISB clearance could not access them.

Sitting down at his desk he plugged his datapad into its port illuminating the keyboard for him to type. He began by writing and sending off the condolence letters for Lobbins and Olbin since those were the two most boring things for him to do. As he sent the final one, Vallie glanced up at the recovered R3 droid. Soon he thought, soon we’ll take a look at your hidden secrets.

As he glanced back down at his datapad and saw a list of files sent to him by Captain Kairnes. Another batch of profiles he thought, as he opened them. The first file he went over was of a stormtrooper private serving on Mimban, overall it was a routine profile but he did note that the soldier had joined after losing their mother, twin sister and father to a botched imperial raid. Vallie marked it as a potential defector and moved on to his next profile. The next one that popped up was of an Imperial officer, a commander from the look of the rank plaque that had let a group of pirates escape. Upon reading it further Vallie noticed that other troopers under her command had filed grievances against a sergeant in their squad who stunned them and their commander that allowed the pirates to escape. Realizing that the sergeant had been captured, Vallie marked them as loyal to the Empire and moved on to the next profile. 

When the next profile appeared, Vallie had to pause for a second and then proceeded to scroll down. The name on the profile was Loriaan Drez, rank Lieutenant with the 165th fighter wing on the Star Destroyer Capri. She was your standard Imperial brat, daughter of an officer in the imperial science division who was a cousin to a colonel in the imperial army who themselves was a cousin of a Grand Admiral in high command and so on. She was very by the book and didn’t have a shred of individuality making her the ideal foot soldier, but the only difference is she could fly. By the numbers she was as good if not better than Reaper, with a kill count almost as high as his. Not to mention she was beyond beautiful. She had deep green eyes with hints of brown, dark brown hair pulled back in a braid and fair skin that appeared as if she had grown up on a coastal type world such as Scarif. 

Vallie thought back to their recent losses, not just with Lobbins and Olbin, but with Raiya as well. This could be perfect he said under his breath, but then he thought more about it. Was he going to let his feelings affect his decision here? That would be against protocol he thought to himself, but without realizing it he had already sent the reassignment request form.

‘No going back now,’ Vallie said out loud, ‘All we can do is wait, and anyways we need the pilots.’ 

Vallie spent another two hours going through profiles before he sat back in his chair turning his attention from the profiles and to the droid in his room. Now that is over with, let’s look in on our little friend, he thought.


	5. Defending the fleet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Panther Squadron moves to defend the survivors from an Imperial attack

‘Passenger transfer is at around fifty percent,’ Verch said over the comm, ‘everyone stay in formation it shouldn’t be much longer.’

‘Fifty percent?’ Tey said over their flight group’s private comm channel, ‘It’s been two hours since we started and they are only at fifty percent?’

‘Have a little patience Tey,’ Vella said in response, ‘you’ve seen the damage they sustained, they probably have a lot of critically injured personnel on board.’

‘Vella’s right, that transport is most likely filled to capacity or over capacity considering where it came from. If the people on board are in the same shape as their ships are, then we just have to wait especially considering how serious the hit to the rear of the transport is. That could have resulted in more being injured than there originally were.’ Jarrie said, feeling Tey’s impatience over the comm. 

Jarrie understood his anxiety though, two ships taking too long to transfer passengers, refuel or even transfer cargo was always an issue as it could leave both ships extremely vulnerable, and Tey had said shortly after he boarded that that was the reason behind his squadron’s losses in the Gabre system. As they continued flying their patrol route, Jarrie recalled Tey’s story about the loss of his squadron trying to find something in there that he could say to calm his wing man and friend.

The mission to the Mon Calamari system was supposed to be a routine mission to deliver supplies to the shipbuilders on the planet so they could continue their construction of Mon Calamari cruisers to aid the rebellion. While en route the convoy was to make a stop in the Gabre system to meet up with a refueling ship before continuing on their way. After refueling all of Ruto Squadron’s x-wings the transports moved into position to begin fueling. About halfway through fueling of the first transport an Imperial Star destroyer dropped out of hyperspace just above the convoy and immediately deployed three squadrons of TIE fighters. The black TIEs with white stripes were barely recognizable in the vast blackness of space. 

Before they had time to react, Ruto ten and four were destroyed in TIE interceptor laser volleys as the Tie Bombers moved into positon to target the transports and refueling ship. The rest of Ruto squadron broke off to intercept the TIEs managing to shoot down one TIE and two TIE Bombers before the first volleys and bombs struck the convoy. As the battle went on, Ruto squadron was quickly reduced to half strength with only six fighters remaining, with only two of the remaining six undamaged. A TIE had moved in to finish off Ruto six who was trailing smoke from both upper engines, but before the TIE could fire Tey managed to destroy it. Shortly after Ruto Leader called for all remaining fighters to withdraw as the convoy ships exploded, killing all aboard each ship. Ruto Leader, eleven, six, and eight had made it to the edge of the battle and were prepared to jump. Tey had been chasing a TIE interceptor as they gathered, managing to disable it before hearing a call from help from Ruto seven who was being chased by two interceptors and was trailing smoke. As Tey swung around to assist he saw the left interceptor open fire and heard Ruto seven scream as their ship was destroyed. Flying down from above on the two interceptors as they made for the rest of his squadron, he got a target lock on the left interceptor and fired immediately reducing the TIE to dust and knocking the other, with a white imperial cog on the wing, off course. Tey signaled to his squadron that they were clear to jump and the survivors escaped to safety as Tey flew across the other interceptor’s viewport before shifting his fighter into position to make the jump.

As he finished recalling the story, Jarrie knew there was no way he could comfort Tey. Tey had lost almost everyone and he held their losses close and blamed himself for Ruto seven’s death, which explained why even months later Tey still had the symbol of Ruto squadron on his helmet and his x-wing’s paint the same color as well. While Jarrie wished Tey would lighten up, he understood loss and unfortunately he had to learn it at the young age of twelve.

‘Just stay in formation, and keep flying. The transfer shouldn’t take much longer,’ Jarrie said attempting to set Tey at ease. Which from the sounds of it didn’t work.

Another half hour passed before Verch came over the comm again.

‘Seventy five percent of the survivors have been transferred! Shouldn’t be much longer.’

Right as she finished her sentence four large red dots appeared on Jarrie’s scanner and then chaos ensued. Everyone was calling in over the comm, Imperial ships had entered the system. As Jarrie swung around from his route with Vella and Tey fallowing suit, he saw the fleet composition. One Arquitens-class light cruiser and three gozanti class freighters with fighters in tow, from Jarrie’s count twelve fighters in total, a full Imperial squadron. 

‘Strato Leader to Panther Leader,’ Tremo called over the comm.

‘Copy Strato Leader,’ Verch responded.

‘You handle the fighters, we’ll handle the cruisers. We can’t let those ships report our position. Strato three, five, six, seven, nine, ten and eleven arm ion torpedos and form up on me!’ 

Jarrie watched as the five Strato squadron x-wings moved into formation heading towards the enemy fleet as the Imperial TIEs detached from their transports.

‘Panther squadron A-wings, accelerate to attack speed and intercept those fighters! We need those x-wings to complete their attack run. Cardo, take the x-wings and defend our fleet! We have to give the crew as much time as we can to complete the transfer!’ Verch called over the comm.

Flipping his switch for the private channel, Jarrie reached out to Tey.

‘Stay focused,’ Jarrie began. ‘We are going to make it through this. I’ll take care of the fighters and you take care of the fleet. Drinks are on me after this.’

Tey sent his acknowledgement as Jarrie adjusted the angle of his fighter towards the swarm of TIE fighters making their way towards Strato Squadron’s x-wings. Jarrie switched all power to engines and accelerated feeling his a-wing jolt forward as it moved. 

‘Panther leader,’ a familiar voice said over the comm. ‘Let us help! We won’t just sit back and watch when our friends are in danger.’

‘Negative Wampa leader, land your ships in the hangar. You’re too damaged and we won’t risk any more lives than we have too. We can handle these imperial slugs!’

Wama leader sent his acknowledgment and Jarrie saw three white dots disappear inside of the Orionda. 

‘Panther A-wings form up and move to point nine five, attack pattern beak,’ Verch ordered over the comm. 

Jarrie pitched his fighter up flipping the switch to take max power out of his engines. Verch was already in position forming the tip of the wedge with Panther eleven and panther four on either of her wings. Jarrie slipped into formation about fifty meters away from the engines of panther eleven, hanging back and keeping wide so as to not catch Stey in his crossfire on their run. The remaining A-wings shifted into formation with Vella moving in just behind him.

‘All wings, stay together and don’t get an itchy trigger finger. Wait until we are in range until opening fire. We will be cutting right into the dog fight from above, Wally’s group has broken up into four fighter groups of two, each moving to a separate cruiser. We are joining their remaining fighters for support.’

As acknowledgements came in over the comm, Verch gave the order to accelerate and begin their gradual dive down into the dogfight. Jarrie could feel himself sweating with a feeling of both anticipation and nervousness overtaking him at the same time. As they neared targeting range Jarrie switched all power to his weapons ensuring that his lasers were ready to go. As they dove Jarrie watched as one of the x-wings destroyed a TIE only to be hit by a volley from a different TIE resulting in damage to the x-wings aft section hitting the shield generator causing it to being sparking and trailing smoke.

‘Stay tight! Verch called over the comm. ‘We are almost in range!’

Jarrie watched as the distance continued to get smaller, his right hand still pushing his control stick forward while his left maintained his speed with his throttle. 700, 600, 550. He saw the bright flash of red lasers illuminate his canopy as he was Verch open fire, followed by Stey and Hurns. 525, 510. Jarrie shifted his thumb to the trigger. Here we go, he said under his breath. Pressing down on the trigger he released a rapid fire of red laser blasts down into the dogfight. As he fired he noticed the dogfight disperse with two TIEs being destroyed by the initial barrage, with some others breaking off to chase the x-wings and others veering out of the way of harm. Just as the commander had planned, he thought to himself. Jarrie knew what was coming next so he adjusted his power output, shifting it to engines and then Verch called it.

‘Break!’

Jarrie saw Verch swing her fighter up along with Stey and Hurns moving their group towards a group of three TIEs that had escaped their volley as he veered to the right with Vella following. 

In front of them was a group of two TIEs attempting to chase down a group of Strato Squadrons fighters as they made for one of the freighters. One of the fighters had already been hit and had a flaming engine on their lower port side.

‘I’ve got one in missile range,’ Vella said over the comm. ‘Missile is locked!’

‘Take the shot!’ Jarrie called over the comm. 

Jarrie watched as the missile shot past his fighter’s canopy moving towards the enemy TIE as two green laser blasts illuminated his canopy. One of the TIEs had gotten behind them. He heard the lasers hit the shields on Vella’s fighter as he saw her pitch to the right and then perform an inverted roll over the top of his fighter, her canopy passing right over his making her republic cogs on her red helmet with a white mid rib clearly visible, before dropping back in on his left wing. 

‘My aft shields are gone! But looks like my missile hit its mark!’ Vella called over the comm. 

‘Hang tight,’ Jarrie called as another laser blast flew past him on his left side. ‘That TIE is aiming for you, keep him occupied and I’ll take care of him!

Jarrie pulled right on his stick and set his engines for maximum throttle as he broke to the right to circle around the back of the TIE. As he made his move the TIE unleashed another volley of lasers at Vella. He wondered why the TIE wasn’t focused on him but then he remembered back to his flight training days with the rebellion. Back then he always focused on the kill and specifically more on what was in front of him and was easy to pick off. This pilot was a rookie, or at least they hadn’t flown enough missions to know the realities of combat. With Vella’s shields gone she must have been the easier target for the young Imperial. 

Jarrie arced his fighter around until he was right behind the TIE and put all fire into his weapons as he fired his cannons launching red laser blasts at the TIE. The first volley just barely missed, with one laser going under where the cockpit branched out to the left wing and the other going just over the right. The second volley was right on target, both lasers striking simultaneously right into the rear of the TIEs cockpit immediately reducing it to an atom.

‘Great shot!’ Vella called, ‘I owe you one for that one!’

‘You owe me a lot more than one,’ Jarrie said as he let out a shirt laugh, accelerating his fighter to match Vella’s. As he reached her fighter he noticed that only one TIE was in front of them.

‘Weren’t there two of them?’

‘Yeah, but I managed to dust another with a missile. Not sure why the last one hasn’t broken off yet.’ Vella responded.

Jarrie heard a scream over the comm. 

‘Kriff. We lost Strato six,’ Wally remarked over the comm, ‘but we have disabled the arquitens. We are beginning our attack run to destroy it!’  
Looking forward at the freighter in front of him, Jarrie watched as the x-wings moved into positon to make their run. As they did the rear turrets swung around started aiming forwards at the incoming x-wings. The two undamaged ones had no issue avoiding the incoming fire and successfully launched their Ion torpedoes at the freighter striking the hull and disabling it on impact. The flaming fighter was not so lucky. They had managed to avoid the first volley but the second hit their starboard engine and clipped their wing sending it into an out of control spiral. The pilot managed to get just enough control of their fighter to steer it directly into the unshielded and disabled cockpit of the freighter shattering the viewport and causing a chain reaction that destroyed the ship entirely.

‘Vella you get a missile lock on that last TIE yet?’

‘Out of missiles, Kye never topped me off after our last skirmish, you’ll have to take this shot.’

Jarrie adjusted the angle of his fighter and managed to quickly gain a missile lock on the TIE pulling the missile trigger on the front of his control stick almost instantly and watching as the missile shot out of his right missile tube traveling straight for the enemy fighter. The TIE pitched to the right and then back to the left in an attempt to evade the missile, but both times the missile continued to follow until it hit home on right aft portion of the fighter immediately destroying it.

‘Another one down!’ Vella cheered. 

As they angled their fighters to move towards another part of the battle a call came over the comm.

‘They’re all over me! I don’t know where they came from! This is Strato four I need help!’

Jarrie looked over his scanner attempting to find where Strato four was located when he found it he relayed it to Vella and they moved into position to assist. 

‘Strato Four move to point one five, I’ll cover you.’

‘Copy panther leader.’

Jarrie could see strato four directly ahead of him and saw two TIE interceptors chasing him opening fire as they pursued. Strato Four began to climb dodging just about every laser last he could, but his fighter wouldn’t hold on for much longer. There was smoke trailing from his mid-section and the dome of his astromech had been blown clean off with fire coming from both the astromech port and just below the cockpit. Jarrie watched as he moved closer to the point Verch had ordered him to go to and glanced up to see his squadron leader flying right at Strato Four. 

‘Strato Four, break right on my mark!’

Jarrie had no clue what she was doing, if she didn’t pull up she was going to take herself out along with another pilot and then she called it.

‘Break!’

Strato four shifted his x-wing to the right completely clearing the way for Verch, who fired a missile right into the cockpit of the first interceptor before quickly adjusting to her right to destroy the second with her lasers.

‘Great shot commander!’ Jarrie called over the comm. 

‘Appreciated Panther three,’ Verch repsoned. ‘You two go and assist Wally, they need more help taking out that arquitens. I’m not sure how much longer it will stay disabled for.’

‘Roger panther leader,’ Jarrie responded in unison with Vella, adjusting engine power to ensure they reached the cruiser to assist Wally’s group as they were already down one fighter.


	6. A Victory for Panther Squadron

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The battle against the Imperial fleet concludes

As Jarrie moved into position with Vella, still a few clicks out from the cruiser, he saw Captain Waldrine and starto eleven moving into position for another run on the cruiser. 

‘This is Panther three, Strato Leader do you copy?’ Jarrie asked over the comm.

‘Copy Panther Three,’ Waldrine responded over the comm, ‘Verch said she was send you tow lawn darts to help us out! The ship is still disabled and we have cleared most of the turrets.’

‘Copy Strato Leader. What’s our plan of attack?’

‘Well if you let me finish I’d tell you! You two move under the ship, we’ll hit it with a combined attack on the main reactor just in front of the engines from above and below. Bany and I will go from the top and you two go from underneath. When you’re in position make sure to set weapons for max and unleash you’re entire payload. That means lasers, missiles, rockets and whatever else you darts carry.’ 

‘Copy that!’ Jarrie responded as he adjusted his fighter’s angle towards the cruiser.

‘Might have to make a few passes,’ Vella began to say over the comm. ‘Those cruisers have tough armor.’

‘We made runs on both sections already. Lost six when she caught a TIE tail making a run on the bottom. Managed to take the kriffer out when they came up one of the sides to try and go after us.’

As Jarrie moved into weapons range he ran through his weapons load-out and checked in with Vella. Combined they had twelve rockets, six for each of them, and three missiles. Jarrie had wished that the personnel and technicians had given a little more focus to their own fighters as opposed to putting all their energy into prepping Strato Squadron. He would have to talk to A’cen when they finished the battle if Cardo didn’t get to him first. 

Pitching his fighter up to get the right angle on the cruiser, Jarrie switched all power to his weapons feeling his fighter drop in speed rapidly. As he moved closer to the cruiser a light began flashing on Jarrie’s dash. That engine light again he thought to himself but there was no time to look into it as the target lock popped up on his targeting computer. Even though she had been shot down Strato Six had done a considerable amount of damage to the ships under belly. There were multiple points where lasers had struck leaving black scorch marks and peeling portions of durasteel armor plating along with a larger black art in the middle where it seemed rockets or a missile had made an impact that had shred through at least three layers of plating. 

‘Target is in range, opening fire!’ Vella called.

‘Starting our attack on the top!’ Wally called over the comm shortly after.

Jarrie began opening fire in unison with Vella, unleashing a continuous stream of laser blasts into the hull shredding armor plating and creating a thick cloud of smoke. As he fired Jarrie lined his fighter up with the impact point from Starto Six and began to unload his rockets straight into the damaged hull.

‘Vella, hold onto you rockets and take point on the next pass we’ll need a clear shot if we are going to do the damage we need!’ Jarrie said as he toggled over to his missile and launched it straight at the impact point that had gotten progressively bigger since they first started their run.

As soon as he had fired his missile they broke off their attack and began to circle around for another pass.

‘If you’re point look as good as ours one more pass should do it!’ Captain Waldrine said over the comm.

‘We have six rockets and two missiles left to fire. That should be enough to breach from below.’ Jarrie responded over the comm.

Jarrie received his acknowledgement from Captain Waldrine as he and Vella flew away from the cruiser. As soon as they reached the edge of their weapons range, Vella broke to the right while Jarrie went left arcing their ships until they came to a point where they faced the cruiser. Jarrie fell in on Vella’s right wing sitting just behind Vella’s right engine to give him a clean shot at the cruiser with his missiles. 

‘Let’s finish the job!’ Vella called over the comm as she began her attack on the cruiser.

As Jarrie watched her fire he made a quick course adjustment to ensure that his missile hit the right spot. A little more he thought to himself as he readied his finger on the missile trigger. Got it! 

As he prepared to fire he felt a blast hit his shield, shaking his fighter and completely knocking out his forward shields. The cruiser had regained power.

‘I’m out of rockets!’ Vella called, ‘Jarrie fire your missiles!’

‘Kid! If you have the shot take it! We’re almost through.’ Captain Waldrine said over the comm.

‘I’m lined up, but the cruiser has regained power. One more shot and I’m done for! I thought you cleared the turrets!’ Jarrie called.

‘Kriff!!’ the captain yelled over the comm.

‘Vella get clear! I need room to maneuver.' Jarrie called as he got an idea on how to get his shot off.

Jarrie watched as Vella broke off form the attack swinging her ship to the left and getting clear of the cruiser. As she did the cruiser fired two more laser volleys right at him. The first missing just over his hull and the second missing just under his fighter as he adjusted his nose. He still had the lock but with those cannons firing he was running out of time. Moving twenty meters closer to the cruiser Jarrie saw his opening as another laser volley shot past his fighter. Jarrie launched his missile right at the weakened point on the cruiser and pulled away just before impacting with the surface of the cruiser, but to his surprise the missile didn’t explode like he thought.

‘There is no way that missile was a dud!’ Bany called over the comm.

Jarrie looked back trying to see the crusier, which looked still functional to him, and then it happened. The cruiser’s reactor port exploded shaking the ship and sending shockwaves through the space around them.

‘Great shot! We won’t be seeing them again!’ the captain remarked. Let’s head back to the fleet.’

Jarrie took a look around him and saw the remaining two freighters burning and breaking apart as he flew towards the Orionda with the remaining starfighters. For the most part it didn’t look like they had lost anyone else from Strato aside from the two confirmed losses he had seen and heard as he saw the one x-wing still trailing smoke from their damaged deflector shield. The rest of his squadron seemed intact as well, but he did notice some trailing from Stey’s fighter. As they neared the cruiser Jarrie did a once over on his dash and still saw the engine warning light flashing on his panel. He had gotten lucky that it hadn’t malfunctioned during the battle but he knew that his luck wouldn’t last much longer. 

As Jarrie looked up from his dash he saw the fleet in full view and as he did, he felt his heart sink. The Orionda was trailing smoke from three different points where it looked as if lasers had struck the hull with one of the points being dangerously close to the ship’s command bridge. The hammerhead, which was undamaged when they arrived, now had laser blast points and missile impact spots lining the port side hull and engines. The Bail appeared undamaged, well at least undamaged from this recent attack, it still trailed a thick cloud of smoke from its initial damage point from their Hoth escape and the GR75 was still docked with the Orionda. Overall, the damage appeared minimal with a lot of close calls to major sections of the ships but what he was more worried about was the rest of his squadron. 

Turning his attention away from the fleet he found Panther Squadron’s x-wings which had stayed back to defend the fleet while Strato Squadron and Panther’s A-wings went to attack the enemy fleet. Jarrie could see four of the five x-wings still flying and there was flames coming from two of the x-wings one of which was Tey’s. Tey’s orange marked fighter with an imperial kill count by the cockpit always stood out in comparison to the other x-wings in flight and now with the flames from the rear of his fighter it stood out even more. Jarrie knew Tey could handle himself when in the cockpit so he wasn’t worried about the flames coming from his wingman’s engines, but he was more worried about how Tey himself was doing. Whatever had happened here while everyone else was in combat certainly wasn’t something to just pass off. 

‘Orills to all fighters, you are clear to land.’ The Orionda’s captain said over the comm, we will have a debriefing shortly. All pilots and officers are expected to attend.’

The fighters made their way back into the hangar bay of the Orionda in an orderly fashion. Some landing with ease and other limping their damaged ships into the hangar almost nearly collapsing as some landed. Jarrie was the fifth Panther A-wing to land and unfortunately he had the bad luck of coming in behind Stey Clem who had filled his approach with a thick cloud of smoke from his damaged engine nearly causing him to clip Cardo’s x-wing with his tail fin. 

As he eased his fighter into his landing spot he began to power off all systems. He was glad that other than the engine his ship held together with no real issues. As he flipped the switch to officially turn his fighter’s power off he let out a deep sigh before opening his canopy and standing up in his cockpit. As he did he took a glance around the hangar bay. He saw techs running from ship to ship, astromechs rolling from one side of the hangar to the other as fast as they could go and medics carrying stretchers both empty and full running to and from the fighters and other locations in the hangar. He saw new faces people in what appeared to be cold weather gear running in small groups either led by Orionda crew or droids and pilots exiting their fighters all around him wearing a variety of colored flight suits. 

As Jarrie turned his head to his left he saw R3-J9 rolling towards him flanked by a female pilot in a white flight suit with a red helmet tucked under her right arm and a red bandana tied around her left arm.

‘Great shooting out there! I’m a bit jealous you got the cruiser kill though,’ Vella said in an upbeat manner. 

‘It was a team effort,’ Jarrrie began. ‘I’m sure Captain Wally had already damaged it on his pass, but my shot never would have gotten through without your help.’

Jarrie saw Vella nearly blush as he said that he knew that comment was going to get to her head but what he said had been true so he let it go. As he moved over the ladder to climb off his fighter he began to think about Tey. Whatever had happened must have shook him up after what had happened to his old squadron these two scenarios were too similar to each other and this time Tey hadn’t gotten out unscathed.

As his feet hit the deck he looked right at Vella with a concerned look on his face and instructed R3-J9 to inspect his A-wing. Vella gave a nod as she saw Jarrie’s expression and they both moved to head towards Tey and his fighter. Since Tey’s addition to the squadron the three of them had become a tight knit group. Tey the jokester and occasional annoyance, Vella the superstitious one who strived to go above standards at times and Jarrie who tried to keep the group in one piece while also encouraging some of the antics.

As they approached Tey’s x-wing Jarrie noticed the damage was worse than initially thought. The flames at the rear stretched from the rear up towards the front near his power generator. Even with the power off, if flames got to there the whole ship would explode. As Jarrie and Vella got closer to the fighter, Vella nudged Jarrie’s arm and pointed up to where someone sat on the hull of the fighter just in front of the cockpit looking out into the space outside the hangar and dressed in a dark blue flight suit with an interceptor style helmet. 

‘Well your fighter has seen better days!’ Jarrie began, trying to set an easier tone to their conversation.

‘Well at least I’m able to talk to women without bringing up their dead squadron members,’ Tey said as he turned his head to look at Jarrie and Vella.

‘I can’t believe you were listening to that. But I’m glad to see you’re alright.’ Jarrie responded.

‘Yeah, that was real smooth there.’ Vella added in with a smir on her face while giving Jarrie a punch in the arm.

As Jarrie was about to respond, A’cen put his left hand on his shoulder and Jarrie turned his head to look at him. A’cen had a dark complexion and dark brown hair with a moderate length mustache on his upper lip that stretched down to connect with his similarly cut beard that stretched from under his chin back along his cheeks to his ears. 

‘I’m glad to see you’re all alright. I was worried that your fighter’s wouldn’t be ready for combat of that level since we hadn’t fully serviced them.’ A’cen said with a slight smile on his face as he gestured to a fire crew to put the fire out on Tey’s x-wing. 

‘Well the important thing is we had enough to get the job done,’ Jarrie said in response. ‘So you can’t say you didn’t do your job.’

A’cen nodded his head in acknowledgement before moving to inspects the damage and speak directly with Tey. A’cen was new to the Orionda joining the crew about a month after Tey had come aboard to join Panther Squadron, filling the role of fighter technician and head weapons specialist for all Starfighters aboard the Orionda. The two had grown up together on the planet Denon but drifted apart when the Empire took over. To their own surprise they had joined the rebellion in the same year but they weren’t able to connect until they realized they would be serving together. Tey as a pilot with Ruto Squadron and A’cen as a fighter tech specifically assigned to Ruto squadron and Tey’s x-wing. After the skirmish in the Gabre system, A’cen immediately put in for transfer to the Orionda which wasn’t processed for another month until Tey put in his own request for A’cen to transfer.

About a minute had passed from when A’cen had gone over to speak with Tey and Jarrie had gone back to looking about the hangar and trying to note every new face he could find as Vella had begun cleaning her helmet with her bandana as she waited. As Jarrie turned his head back towards Tey’s x-wing he saw A’cen and Tey walking towards him with Tey gripping his helmet in his right hand and what seemed to be a dark charred spot on the left arm of his flight suit. As Jarrie was about to move over to talk to them Captain Orills came over the comm. 

‘All pilots and officers report to the briefing room!’

‘There’s our cue let’s get going. We don’t want to keep the Captain waiting!’ Jarrie said as he turned towards the main interior of the ship to follow Vella who was already on her way.

‘I’m more concerned about the Quarren,’ Tey added. ‘He nearly popped a mouth tentacle after our last mission when Verch order the three of us to break off and eliminate a TIE group making a run on the bomber group we were escorting instead of sticking to the plan he had made.’

‘You’re right,’ Jarrie said with a short laugh as he continued walking. Everything had happened so fast that Gleeves hadn’t had time to relay a strategy to the squadrons, everyone had just jumed into action. Jarrie could only imagine his reaction to having to sit on the bridge and watch as the battle unfolded before his eyes. Although, they had destroyed the enemy fleet and from the looks of it they hadn’t been able to get off a message to any other Imperial’s about their discovery so he hoped Gleeves would at least be happy with the outcome. They were safe for now, but Jarrie just wish he knew how long their safety would last for.


	7. The Droid

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vallie begins his inspection of the droid

Vallie slid his chair back and stood up from his desk. Turning to his left he walked around his desk and over to the recovered R3 droid. The droid had been motionless all this time, not even so much as blinking as it stood there. Whatever secrets are inside of you must be important if you're still silent Vallie thought as he gave the transparent red dome a tap with his hand. 

Vallie turned back towards his desk, reaching into a bottom drawer for a power cord for the droid. As he picked it up and turned back towards the droid, two notifications pinged on his data pad. Vallie sighed. I have to be interrupted now, he thought to himself as he moved back to his desk and opened his data pad. 

He clicked his notification folder and opened the first one. The message was from Drez that said she looked forward to joining the 182nd after her transfer paperwork went through. Vallie’s expression changed from more serious to almost giddy. Drez was coming and he couldn’t wait. Vallie spent about a minute thinking of opening lines to say, trying to be the best version of a calm cool collected leader that he felt she would be expecting from him before he snapped himself out of it and closed the message. 

The second notification was from Captain Kairnes who had sent him a holonet broadcast. Vallie tapped the broadcast link with his finger and a hologram appeared on the projector in front of him. 

As the broadcast began, it panned across a bright white terrain with mountains set in the back ground as the imperial newscaster began to speak. 

'Today the Empire has struck a crippling blow to the Rebellion! The 501st legion along with the Blizzard force led by General Maximillian Veers and Lord Vader have routed the rebels from their base on Hoth. The Empire salutes our heroes that fell in the battle.' He said as the pan continued showing smoke rising from different parts of the terrain some small and others large appearing to come from the carcass of destroyed AT-AT walkers, namely one that appeared to have its head blown completely off. 

'The current estimation is that thousands of rebels perished in the assault as a result of the joint effort. Many of those rebels that had tried to escape were destroyed when their transports attempted to flee. This victory will be long remembered as one of the greatest victories in the history of the Empire!'

As the broadcast finished and moved on to information about a scandal with the imperial governor of the Mytaranor sector where Kashyyyk was located, Vallie turned it off. He couldn't contain his joy at hearing this, as a huge smile came across his face and he dropped the charging cable. It had been 3 years since the Emipre's defeat over Yavin and the loss of millions of personnel including Grand Moff Wilhuff Tarkin, who Vallie had idolized since joining the empire eleven years ago. In that time Vallie had tried to find a way to locate the rebel base as he felt the imperial probe droids weren't always accurate. He had tried calculating hyperspace routes, rebel strike patterns, comm tracking and more. None of them brought much success. Now, hearing the new from Hoth he was surprised to read in the attached report that it had been a probe that had found the base by documenting their power generators on the exterior of what looked like a mountain. Vallie made a mental note of that in case they needed to find or track any rebels or pirates that may have evaded them. He only wish he had known of their ability to achieve success sooner so he could have sent one after the Rebels that had evaded them in the Gabre system. 

After a moment of celebration, Vallie picked up the power cord that he had dropped and moved over to the droid. As he bent down he opened the charging hatch and inserted the connection wire feeling it click into place. As he turned to plug the other end of the cord into a power socket, a bright light caught his attention. Vallie turned back to see the holo projector on the droid lit up with a bright white. 

'Well what have we here,' Vallie said out loud both curious and confused as to why the droid had suddenly turned on even when its power wasn't restored. Unless the power was never low to begin with, Vallie thought to himself. 

Vallie turned back around to plug the cord in, feeling the click of the cord in the socket. As Vallie turned back to the droid he noticed that the droid’s holo light had turned off. This is highly irregular he thought to himself as he walked over the droid, kneeling down once he was next to it go get a better look at everything. 

Vallie began by running his hand over each of the droids compartments in attempt to gauge the age of the char that covered the droid and checking to see if there was any heat emitting to suggest that the droid might be running in a low power mode or had been running recently. All compartments on the back side were cold with not so much as a slight hum or buzz coming from them. As Vallie moved around to the front he caught the faint glimpse of a light flash from the indicator light right under the radar eye. 

What’s going on with this droid? Vallie thought to himself. The flashing lights were usually indicators of a droid functioning even if the power was low, but from everything Vallie could see the droid had little to no power coming from it, even with the power cord attached, and appeared as if it was practically lifeless. Vallie came to two conclusions. The first being that the droid was either internally damaged and the flashing lights were most likely a result of that damage or that the droid was tampered with before being jettisoned and there was something more to the droid than he thought.

At the thought of the second one Vallie shuttered. If there was an issue with this droid and it caused problems, then his consequences would be as bad if not worse than Gabre. As he stood up fully Vallie turned to his desk leaving the droid where it stood. He knew exactly who he needed to bring in for this. As he stopped walking in front of his chair he reached down to press the button on his desk.

‘Comm officer, patch me into the slicers.’

‘Roger that, Captain, I am patching you through now.’

The slicers were an elite unit of technicians attached to the Ninth judicial fleet. Every star destroyer in the fleet had a small crew of five slicers that not only worked as droid pool technicians but also hackers and network spies throughout both the imperial network and the holonet. While all were excellent at their jobs, the ones on the Restrictor were the best. Their first biggest accomplishment was hacking into a rebel droid pool and singlehandedly destroying a passing rebel fleet by using the droids to sabotage each ship and fighter. Lieutenant Biercan had been the one that had come up with the plan and took great pride in the rebel’s destruction, being the one to take over and destroy the command ship personally. The other members of the group were equally as ruthless and cunning, but Biercan was the evil genius of the group and he had proven himself many times. 

‘Captain Caldoran. Nice of you to reach out to us, are you having trouble with your droid?’ Biercan came over the comm to say before Vallie could say anything. 

‘You could say that,’ Vallie said. ‘I’m guessing you heard of our catch over our comm when we landed. You wouldn’t happen to know about why the droid is acting up would you Lieutenant?’

‘Oh we know nothing about that,’ Biercan responded with a light chuckle. ‘If you come down here maybe we can discuss the issue, no need to bring the droid.’

As Vallie heard this, he rolled his eyes. This was the one thing he disliked about Biercan. While he was highly experienced and intelligent, he was also childish and would do things both against orders and against protocol. Which was how the Slicers’ had destroyed rebel fleet by going against Kairnes orders to focus on jamming transmissions and preventing any rebel reinforcements, but instead went to hacking every droid they could get a hold of and destroying the rebels from the inside. Kairnes, while he was pleased with their work, refused to acknowledge their accomplishment resulting in only the crew of the Restrictor knowing of their first biggest moment. 

‘I’ll be down shortly,’ Vallie said reluctantly over the comm knowing that he had no choice but to go and see what exactly was going on down there. 

Before he moved from his desk he called Breach over the comm. Of all people on the Restrictor, Breach was one of the few that actually enjoyed visiting the Slicers and praised the work that they did even when they disobeyed orders, which was often. 

‘Gortech, I’m heading down to see the Slicers. Are you going to accompany me?’

‘A trip to see the slicers?! You know me Vice, I’ll take any chance I can get to see those crazy kriffers!’

Vallie removed his finger from his comm button and exhaled deeply. He was never a fan of going down to deck thirteen but the reason wasn’t only because of his opinion of the Slicer’s.


End file.
